DIY Soap Making & Recipes – Beginner To Advanced

These make lovely gifts and the great thing about them is that various fragrances and ingredients can be mixed and matched to get exactly what you want. This big list of tutorials and recipes has everything from using grated bars of ready-made soap to whipping them up from scratch using lye and other items. Lots here for everyone!

millersoap.com: There’s an astonishing amount of information including: Frequently Asked Questions; Troubleshooting section if a batch doesn’t turn out; Several PDF downloads available (basic procedures, where to find ingredients, etc.); Both traditional methods and modern techniques provided; How to design and create recipes and much more! Also see teachsoap.com which is another goody for tutorials.

Two Easy Molds: PVC pipe for the round one and the rectangular is made with pieces of poplar board.

It’s hard to imagine a time when we used bars of soap for washing hands, today liquid varieties are more convenient and are preferred by many because of the perception that they’re more sanitary. The price comparison between the two is outrageous, especially if stocking up on generic brands when they’re on sale.

Here’s a way to take advantage of those cost savings yet still enjoy the convenience of the liquid form, make your own version! Just a few simple ingredients are needed that don’t break the budget, and it’s so easy to do too!

The benefits of homemade vs. store bought is the obvious cost savings, but the fragrance can also be customized (with essential oils or a herbal infusion). Here’s how…

1 bar soap (6 oz) 1 TBS honey 1 tsp glycerin

Directions:

Grate bar into small flakes, toss in blender.

Whip in 1 cup boiling water.

Add 1/2 cup room temperature water and stir in blender.

Stir in honey and glycerin.

Allow to cool (15 minutes) then whip again.

Mixture should be 2 cups at this point. Top with cool water until it measures between 5 and 6 cups, whip.

Pour into containers and allow to cool (do not put lids or caps on yet).

After an hour, close containers. Mixture will thicken up.

Shake before using as needed.

Optional: A herbal infusion can be used, just strain first.

Source: Adapted from Pearls of Country Wisdom by Debora S. Tukua (First published here on Tipnut September 12, 2008 and moved to this page for better organization)

Another version:

Save leftover bits (or grate one) then toss in a glass mason jar and top with boiling water (about double the amount of soap bits). Stir then seal with lid. Shake jar a few times while it’s cooling to get rid of any clumps. Once cooled, stir well and add a few drops of essential oil if a scented version is desired.

Pour into bottle then top with water as needed to get the right consistency (shake well). If for some reason it’s too thin, simply melt a bit of grated soap in a little hot water then combine with first mixture to thicken.

*First published August 25, 2008 and moved to this page for better organization

Here’s a couple tutorials showing how to felt a bar, this is new to me and I think these would make great gifts!

SuZanna Anna On HGTV

Video Summary:

Pull off some wool fiber and wrap it nice and tight around the bar (one way).

Next wrap some tightly the other way (perpendicular). This helps the fibers felt together.

Next pull off little strands in contrasting colors and lay them gently on top to give a tie-dye effect. Do this on one side.

Put the wrapped piece in a clean nylon stocking. This will help the fibers stay together.

Tools Needed: Washboard, dish detergent, towel

Drip a little bit of dish detergent on top (now in the nylon stocking) to get things started, just a bit is needed since it will start working from the inside.

Scrub it on the washboard (quickly, back and forth, all sides) for about 10 minutes until it’s felted enough so the bar can be taken out of the stocking.

Keep rubbing until you can’t pinch any wool away from it.

Rinse off in the bowl of hot water.

Blot it in the towel to remove excess moisture.

Set on a drying rack to dry.

Another video with a different method:

Instead of using a washboard, just rub the bar with fingers, working for several minutes to felt. Toward the end of the video you’ll see a suggestion to first cover it with a plastic bag and then work on it (contains the mess). In the comments area there’s this tip:

The wool will continue to felt more firmly with use and the soap will dwindle and disappear leaving you with a little felted wool bundle that has a hallow core. You can carefully slice it open to make a coin purse, or cut off the top and add a strap to make a necklace pouch or holder of some kind.

Here’s a website with more details: Mielke’s Fiber Arts. The pictures are really clear so you’ll get a good idea of how things look throughout the process. This site advises that this only works with wool or other protein fibers (such as llama or angora) and that some felt better than others.

What Readers Are Saying:

I have made my own soaps for about 10 years and I love the creative aspect! I have come up with some very luxuriant soaps! Making your won soap can get expensive (like when you use almond oil, walnut oil, lanolin, beeswax, olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, essential oils, and powdered oatmeal all in the same batch of soap!!!), but ohhh what great soap! I found a small meat processing place that will give me all the suet I want for free (I just have to pick it up and tote it out, unpackaged by them), then I have frozen it until i want it. I render it down, strain, place in molds, then when cool, wrap and freeze for when I need it. This make sit very convenient. Even though the tallow is frozen, it is easy to break off chunks, weigh them, and melt them down. Hope this is helpful for those of you who cannot believe the high price of suet in grocery stores!

Don’t you usually put soap into your blender to clean it after you make your drink? If you clean well your next drink never tastes like soap, right? How will this be different? I make soap in my blender all the time and I NEVER have a problem with anything tasting like soap. Just be prepared to have a really clean blender. 🙂

Hey I buy glycerin at the drug store all the time. I use it in my sewing room to make the fabric stick to my fingers better. Works really good. A small bottle of it goes a long way and is just a couple of dollars or so.

you can get glyceryn in several you might want to try where they sell bakery products, caldor, home depot, and many others it is used for many things, you can also get it in most super markets, /just don’t go the Tyler Durden way :P)

I do have a question does this soap keep it’s gooey properties or do I have to shake it every time I want to get soap? does the soap mixture separate from the water after some time?

Hi, does anyone have a “recipe” or formula for making the reed diffuser scented oils? I haven’t found a place that only sells refills for them and have bought some with scents I love! Too expensive too replace containers and scents as much as I’d like. Thanks..

Yes, you can combine the ingredients in a pot on the stove (~medium heat), stirring frequently until completely dissolved. Once it is dissolved, continue to heat a few minutes more to make absolutely sure it is completely dissolved. Add food coloring and/or scents. Pour into container, leave open to cool. Add cool water to desired consistency.

Roughly a decade or so ago, one of the ‘big’ infomercial items was a DIY liquid soap maker/dispenser; you added soap ‘ends’ and water and shook the container. A LOT. It made for an odd, watery soap but what “helped” the bits and water combine were the round, plastic “beads” inside the container. We don’t have a blender so I’m thinking of picking up some marbles at our local dollar store, placing them and the above ingredients in, say, an empty milk or water jug, and shaking it til the cows come home. Might be worth a try, especially for those who are worried about using a blender or don’t have one to begin with.

Hey john…not sure how long ago you wrote this, but do you have a grater? If so, you can grate the soap or even chop it up w/ a knife into little pieces. Then melt it on the stove like Miss M says above, on medium heat. I’m sure it would be easier than shaking it till the cows come home. You know how them cows are, they may not want to come home as soon as you want them too. 🙂

I made a batch of dry laundry detergent tonight. The first time I made it, I used one of the 4 sided graters, but the soap was rather large pieces. Next I blended it and it came out just right. Tonight I grabbed the little hand cranked grater – like they use in the restaurant to grate cheese on the pasta, after it is served. This little thing grates it really fine. Just cut it into pieces that fit in the grater.

I’m trying this with a bar of Dial soap that already has glycerin in it. My blender is completely full of foam after the second step. I’m leaving it for a while and I hope the foam will eventually settle.

Unfortunately, my blender only has two speeds – off and really, really fast. I’m guessing that I should stir by hand during the final steps.

Kelly, Same thing happened to me. I used a bar of Dial soap and it is a bunch of foam. I let it sit per instructions. It is sealed now and has been sitting for about 18 hours and it is still mostly foam. It is kind of watery too. I am thinking Dial is not the right way to go. Anyone have any ideas?

I use dial and it works great! Of course I have had to completely modify it. Instead of using a belender, I use a hand mixer, less bubbles. I added two tbs extra of glycerin to get rid of the stringy like texture, my whole family loves it!

Here is a recipe to make it without suds and suds and more suds:

1 4 oz bar of soap (I use dial) 4 tbsp of glycerin 4 cups of water.

I cook it on the stove on low heat until the soap is dissolved. Then I mix it in the pot with a hand mixer.

Pour into gallon jugs to keep. Sometimes it may turn out to thick, just pour it back into the pan, heat it on low until it turns back into liquid and then add 1 more cup of water at a time until it is the consistancy you want. Good Luck.

i apparently ran out of body wash last night and used this as a body wash, believe it or not, its GOOD! so i went and modified it a little bit and used that as my new body wash (it works better then Palmolive!!)

Just a warning. I must have had some super frothy soap! I had a lot of soap scraps, about enough to equal 2 full bars of soap. So I thought I’d double the recipe.

I put the soap in and I didn’t have “whip” on my blender, so I picked milkshake. I found out from friends that whip is probably slow on the blender. I put in the boiling hot water, put my hand on the lid of the blender and turned it on. It LITERALLY exploded boiling hot water and soap foam everywhere. I had the lid on tight and the pressure exploded the lid off.

I cleaned up the mess and had a giant blob of foam. So I divided what was left in the blender into two batches and wait for the foam to go down. And waited and waited. The next day it was still a thick blob of foam.

So I put it in a pot on the stove on low and in about 15 minutes it melted down.

Just warning you guys. Don’t make a double batch and “whip” is low! I think next time I’ll just use the blender to grind up the soap scraps and then just melt it down on the stove.

Just wanted to let y’all know, I’m pretty sure it was the hot water that made it explode. I didn’t know that was possible till I saw it on a cooking show. Instead of telling the guy it was dangerous, they just watched him do it and THEN proceeded to say it was dangerous, while shaking their heads, like he should have known. But, I mean seriously, who knows that unless some one tells you or it happens to you? I just wanted to pass that along and hopefully help someone avoid some serious burns.

Ok, I shredded 1 bar of Safeguard (my fav) in the cheese grater attachment of my food processor. Added 3 cups of hot tap water & heated it up in the microwave until everything was dissolved.

Looked like it worked, so I put it in the dispenser bottle. An hour later it completely geled up into a pudding-like consistency. I put the dispenser in the microwave to “turn” it back into a liquid just to get it out, then added about 1/2 c of cool water, stirring to incorporate and immersed the pyrex measuring cup in an ice bath to cool it down to room temperature. It remained liquid at room temperature so I left it alone for 15 min only to have it gel back up again!

Obviously this is an agitation issue.

So, do I keep adding water and letting it sit until it STAYS a liquid? Will I dilute it so much it doesn’t actually work as soap?

This is my problem. I grated soap in blender. Put this, water, glycerine on stove til totally melted. Set like gel. Watered down (low heat), now no soap action left. Added more soap gratings (low heat) and like heavy gel again. I didn’t mix in blender – is that the problem? – no froth this way. Or is it the soap I used?

Hi, I just made the hand soap tonight, so was sort of expecting the same result. This is becasue I made some laundary detergent last week. Very similar recipe. However, if you didn’t heat it on the stove you had to keep it in a bowl covered, and then each day give it a whisk until all the soap peices have mixed in. (The soap floats to the top and solidifies, leaving the water underneath, but it broke up easy enough each day and whisked back together, it had to do this about 3 times) Hope this helps.

I am having a hard time finding emulsifying wax. It is used in making your own hand lotion. None of the craft stores/drug stores carry it and was wondering if anyone knew where I might buy some. This is the first time I have tried to make hand lotion. Thanks!

Well, soap all made and bottled – I didn’t have enough bottles so had to rummage for a couple more – it makes quite a lot!!! It is very thick, I do hope it comes out of the pump dispensers ok????!!!!!!!

I made this, had to keep adding water to it, until it didn’t gel up on me. How do you get this “soapy”? I wash my hands with it, and it doesn’t “foam up” and lather like other soaps do. I did have to add a lot of extra water to it until it didn’t get up, would that be the problem? I also added some clear aloe vera get to it, which is very nice. I am using ivory soap. Is there any other soap that would work better for this?

To make hand soap we melt a bar of grated ivory soap in four cups of hot water and let it set till it thickens. I add a little liquid natural soap for a fragrance. Use your fingers to mix it up and presto you have your soap.

I make my own goat milk soaps & I just have to try this method. I’ve tried to make liquid soaps before, but without success. The honey & glycerin must make the difference (Although glycerin does occur naturally in soapmaking. It’s just that most commercial soap manufacturers remove the glycerin for a separate sale.)

Important Info: Triclosan is an active ingredient in Liquid soap. It is also registered with the EPA as a Pesticide. Other Ingredients in Liquid Soap have Neurotoxin Properties. Keep this in mind when making your soaps. What are you willing to ingest throuh your skin?

I have been doing this adding the hint and glycerin to my cold process soap. Mine is also gelling up. It will be a wonderful soap for about a week till it gets to thick to pump. Then if I sit it in hot water in the pump it will get thin once again. I never have trouble in the shower since I love hot showers it melts it again.

I have tried to make different homemeade items over the years, and it sees that everyhing I had to add water to would sour in a short time. I’m trying to get into making my own products, but afraid it will happen again. Has anyone had a problem with this changing it’s sell?

Before I make a batch I have a question… I hear alot of people have trouble with it thicking up after a week to where you can’t pump it. Is there a way to prevent this? Less glycerin?? Is it the bar of soap used? I want to make them for Christmas gifts and I don’t want it to thicken up on them…. Any help is appreciated!! Thanks

i made it today : 1 its too makes hand dry need more glycerin as prior iam using store one branded moisturizer handwash 2 yes i also think that after some time water settle down and soap float over it jam the dispenser 3 its shelf life may very short as i think it start contaminating by bacteria after a week even in closed container anyone tested its shelf life so how safe it is 4 after making soap from bar its almost fragrance less that original bar have we need to add perfume etc in it 5 will this work in automatic dispencer or clog it in after one or two refill 6 i think shelf life is 3 week so its best to empty refills in this period and made new batch else put german plus etc in it 7 its not completely a perfect substitute for liquid handwash as easy as market ready to use refills 8 yet it is economical

I made this today and it turned out great! Here is what I did! I used Yardley bar soap (4.25oz)99c @ wal-mart! used same amount of water i pored the hot water in a little at a time and added the soap shavings a little at a time where it didn’t explode like others had said there’s did! I did do it in the blinder on the whip button! I didn’t use extra glycerin(this soap has it already) I did use the honey! It smells great and the texture is great! It is also very bubbly soapy! 🙂 Hope this helps!

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